BAGHDAD: Iraq's government condemned on Tuesday overnight US air strikes on Iraqi military positions that it said killed one serviceman and wounded 18 other people, calling them a "clear hostile act".
The United States has carried out retaliatory air strikes on Monday in Iraq after a one-way drone attack earlier in the day by fighters that left one US service member in critical condition and wounded two others.
The government condemned the US strikes as "an unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty," while stressing that attacks by armed groups against military bases hosting US-led coalition advisers are hostile acts and violate Iraqi sovereignty, a government statement said.
Two Iraqi security sources said overnight US airstrikes targeted headquarters for Iraqi armed group Kataib Hizbullah in the Iraqi city of Hilla south of Baghdad,
One fighter from Kataib Hizbullah was killed in the strikes and 16 were wounded, said two security sources on condition of anonymity.
Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said "US military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by Kataeb Hizbullah and affiliated groups in Iraq".
Austin said "these precision strikes are a response to a series of attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by sponsored fighters".
The attacks had included a drone strike Monday by Kataeb Hizbullah and affiliated groups on Arbil Air Base, Austin said. It wounded three US military personnel, one critically, said US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.
US President Joe Biden had directed the US strikes in a call with Austin and other national security officials, a statement said.
Biden "places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm's way," it added. "The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue."
The United States has 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq on a mission it says aims to advise and assist local forces trying to prevent a resurgence of IS, which in 2014 seized large swaths of both countries before being defeated. - AFP/ Reuters
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